News

Document: Californians maxing out on federal campaign contributions

Center for Responsible Politics

Posted:
04/04/2014 12:57:16 PM PDT

Updated:
04/04/2014 01:22:45 PM PDT

Here's the Center for Responsible Politics' list of Californians who apparently hit the aggregate limit on federal campaign contributions - a limit the U.S. Supreme Court voided Wednesday as an unconstitutional violation of First Amendment rights.

This data is from the 2011-2012 election cycle, when the aggregate limit was $117,000, but Center for Responsive Politics research director Sarah Bryner said there are several reasons why many people appear to have given more than that.

One reason might be that contributors gave to "Carey committees" - PACs that can operate both traditionally by giving money to candidates and as super PACs making independent expenditures, so long as they keep separate bank accounts for each purpose. Bryner said that's the case with Charles Munger Jr. of Palo Alto, who appears as this list's biggest contributor.

Also, the Federal Election Commission's data is notoriously vague and hard to compile, Bryner said. For example, money intended for a previous cycle, or election-recount money that's not subject to aggregate limits, might not be clearly identified and so gets counted in. In other cases, people of the same name - particularly fathers and sons - counted as one, she said.